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Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Japanese really has this thing for schoolgirls in uniform. And it's not just any schoolgirl. It's a schoolgirl who carries a sword & kills vampires in the subway. And she works for a secret organisation. And she looks like Angelina Jolie.

Look at those lips. They remind me of cream puffs. I didn't know animated characters also had to go for botox. See the resemblance? I knew someone once who had lips like that. She got stung by a bee.

As with any other anime in Japan, they're always based on manga. The original version came out in 2000 by Benkyo Tamaoki. This was the English reprint or something which came out later.

I looked it up, the art's not that great but it wasn't bad. And of course as with most manga, they have the luxury of having hundreds of pages to slowly build up the characters & the storyline layer upon layer, making it very engaging.

However, it was the animated movie that really rocked my world. Watch the clip if you haven't & tell me if your world is rocked.

When I first saw this trailer on YouTube, I knew I had to get the DVD.

And now, the producers of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon has made this little anime into a mega-budgeted Hollywood movie, starring a Korean actress, playing a Japanese, who speaks English.Yes I know. It has already been playing in the cineplexes for some time now & you've probably watched it already.

But I just thought that I'd write about it anyway, cos it's one of those pop culture things that I really like. But I'm not so sure about the live-action movie. It looks too slick, too bright, too colourful & easily mistaken for a superhero/fantasy movie rather than horror.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

As a kid I didn't do much. Kids then were unlike the monsters that we have created today. If you take a good look at their daily calendar, their to do list can easily rival any CEO of any major international corporation.

But back then, my calendar of activities had only 4 things - Eat, Sleep, Play & Draw. I was a major underachiever. I mean you're talking about a kid who thought to be able to sit at the back of a lorry was an ambition.

However, there were other kids around my age who did a lot more.

I was playing with plastic toy soldiers. I threw a ball of paper at the row of toy soldiers & they were annihilated. And I thought I was a dang genius.

I collected Buah Sagas under the tree in school, challenged my schoolmates to a game, won lots more & I thought I was the King of the World.

I played in the drains & caught a lot of fish (Batok, longkang fishes) & I thought I had an indispensible skill.